


A Fine Romance

by MissRachelThalberg



Series: Tea & Tropes [5]
Category: The Bletchley Circle, The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (TV)
Genre: AU, Dancing, F/F, Fluff, Romance, WW2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:02:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 8,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26446786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissRachelThalberg/pseuds/MissRachelThalberg
Summary: A delightful AU in which Jean and Millie get together at Bletchley during the war (and don't wait until they eventually make it to San Francisco).
Relationships: Millie Harcourt/Jean McBrian
Series: Tea & Tropes [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1902100
Comments: 34
Kudos: 54





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Times She Should Have Known](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26393887) by [MsFangirlFace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsFangirlFace/pseuds/MsFangirlFace). 



> This fic is an AU followup, of sorts, of the first section of MsFangirlFace's "The Times She Should Have Known" - except this time, Millie really does figure it out after "One" happens.
> 
> It's also part of the Tea & Tropes series - the trope here is "SECRET DATING", since while lesbianism might be, in itself, a little... outré in the 1940s, lesbianism WITH YOUR BOSS AT BLETCHLEY is an even greater inducement to secrecy.

Jean knows the moment something breaks between Millie and Susan; it’s obvious in their every interaction, and when little Lucy lets something slide about how she and Millie switched beds and rooms, Jean finds her suspicions confirmed.

She doesn’t know what exactly happened between the two young women – Susan’s eyes are red-rimmed, Millie’s are very particularly _not_ – but of course she knows _exactly_ what happened, as well. Two things can be true at once, in love if not in codebreaking.

(Later, she catches some talk about _weddings_ and _future husbands_ and _flowers_ and _dresses_ , and she can only too well imagine what transpired.)

In truth, she can, on some level, feel bad for Susan, as well; it’s a difficult fate, theirs, and while she likes to think she wouldn’t run from it if that was an option for her, she wonders if any woman in her position could be entirely sure of that fact. Susan’s pain is real, even if Millie’s is endlessly more familiar.

It is Millie, of course, whom she reaches out to.

*

“Millie.”

Millie looks up from the typed sheet she’s studying – it’s upside down, her eyes are red from lack of sleep even if not from crying, her hair stands out like a fuzzy halo around her face. It’s after midnight, and Jean feels something strangling at her heart.

She rests a hand on Millie’s shoulder, sets a cup of tea and a shortbread biscuit down beside her.

“Here.”

She hesitates, hears the concern in her own voice.

“And for God’s sake, girl, get some sleep. That’s camomile tea. It’ll help.”

Millie doesn’t say anything, and Jean smiles.

“And there’s a liberal splash of gin in there, too. The combination’s got me through many a broken heart.”

Suddenly, Millie’s hand is on hers, still on Millie’s shoulder, the white knuckles standing out sharply against the blood-red nail polish, holding on for dear life. Even though Jean knows _exactly_ what’s happening here, it still almost frightens her to sense, in the pressure of these long fingers on hers, the intensity of feeling, the sheer effort it takes the younger woman to keep it together.

Millie is not, of course, going to cry; in a way, that makes everything much more heartbreaking.

“Oh, _dear_.”

Jean hears her own voice crack.

The cruellest thing, she sometimes thinks, this world has done to people like them is to render their pain unspeakable.


	2. Two

Millie takes to visiting Jean in her office in the evenings; it’s awkward for her, Jean can only too well imagine, to spend hour after hour across the common room from Susan Havers and her red-rimmed eyes and her wedding plans.

She doesn’t comment upon these sudden visits, but, after a week or so, she makes sure Millie’s chair is ready for her, just the way she likes it, within easy reach of the radio and ashtray both, and with the cardigan she left there the second evening draped across the back.

When Millie walks in that night she, in turn, doesn’t comment, even as Jean looks at her over the rim of her glasses, her fingers busy knitting the seemingly _endless_ khaki socks they’re all encouraged to produce.

Jean’s always liked Millie Harcourt – she’s smart and, in spite of her recalcitrant streak, extremely competent. What’s more, she has a good heart; when, in 1942, Lucy joined them, barely seventeen and scared of her own shadow, it was Millie who first spoke to her, who made her feel part of the war effort and, perhaps more importantly, of their group.

It’s not what Jean would’ve expected from a tall, English aristocrat; it surprised her and endeared Millie to her in ways she’s careful not to show.

It’s different, though, to sit across from that bright, bold girl, to receive her full attention, to watch the nervous energy in the practiced way those manicured fingers hold onto a cigarette, to hear those clipped debutante vowels, laced in irony and earnestness both, directed at her and discussing life rather than Nazi codes.

“Val writes to me sometimes, these days,” Millie notes coolly, tapping her cigarette on the side of the ashtray.

“Mama and Father, though, never. I’ve been struck from the family Bible and – what matters more – from the old Last Will and Testament.”

She talks about her family so as not to talk about Susan, probably, but Jean doesn’t mind. She offers Millie another biscuit, which the younger woman gratefully accepts.

“At least my Cousin Edward’s around. He’s got some leave next week and we’re going dancing in London together when I’m off for the weekend. He’s sweet – another black sheep, but we have good times.”

She glances at Jean, then:

“Would you like to come along?”

Jean promptly drops three stitches once she realises Millie is, in fact, utterly serious.

“ _Me_ , dear? Going dancing in London with you and your cousin?”

The notion of her, _Jean McBrian_ , out in the city with two Harcourt black sheep is almost too absurd for words, and she’s about to say so when she catches the look in Millie’s brown eyes. She’s a difficult one to say no to, even for Jean, who likes to think she’s one of Britain’s leading experts.

“Sure, why not? We could have some drinks, anyway, perhaps a dance or two – I know a little club you might like.”

(How, thinks Jean idly, would Millie Harcourt have _any idea_ what kind of clubs she ‘might like’?)

“Edward has a friend whose flat we’re allowed to use, so we wouldn’t have to rush for the train, or anything. He’s always telling me to ask a friend along – plenty of space. And anyway, I owe you one for the tea and sympathy."

Jean, against _just about every inch of better judgement she’s ever had or will ever possess_ , says yes.


	3. Three

Edward Harcourt is a charming young man; he’s also, and Jean _would_ know this, a raging homosexual. This, she ponders as they shake hands and exchange pleasantries, rather explains Millie’s particular fondness for her fellow black sheep.

(It also instantly makes Jean like him much better; heterosexual men tend to try her patience.)

He’s wearing his uniform as he picks them up at the station; Millie’s donned a rather outrageously modish burgundy frock for the occasion. Jean, on the other hand, is wearing the green dress she wears to Bletchley Christmas parties (and to church the next morning). It is, in a word, rather more sedate.

Still, she likes to think she looks nice enough; despite what some of her girls might think, she’s not quite over the hill yet, and there’s a certain thrill to arriving in London with the sunset rather than in mid-morning. It makes her feel surprisingly young, much like she did when she first arrived there in 1926, twenty years old and fresh out of Glasgow. She found London foggy and smoky and full of promise, and in a completely different way it feels like that now.

Millie slips her arm through Jean’s as Edward steers them toward a taxi, Jean smiles up at her and squeezes her arm gently. She has no idea what the night will bring; London’s nightlife with two impossibly posh twenty-somethings holds nothing but mysteries to a Scottish grocer’s daughter, but Millie’s cheeks are pink and she’s smiling with rather a lot of the old confidence. It’s all worth it for that alone.

*

The bar is located a little out of the way; it’s an inobtrusive sort of place, unlike the rather more extravagant locale Jean would’ve assumed Millie might have chosen. A waitress greets them at the door – it’s clearly not the first time Millie and Edward have been there – and the three of them soon find themselves ensconced at a small table in the semi-darkness, with generous cocktails in front of them. As Jean takes a sip, Millie winks.

“Enjoy it - they get the good stuff here. French.”

It’s the War and _nobody_ is getting the good stuff, of course; Jean does not ask too many questions. She’s out in London and she’s feeling younger than she has in years.

(She also knows now – and wonders very much if Millie knows she knows – exactly what kind of place this is.)

A small orchestra is playing in the corner and Edward, courteously, asks his cousin to dance. They dance well together; they’re a handsome pair really, and Jean is quite content to sit, nursing her drink, and watch them. The two Harcourts are nothing alike in looks, but there’s a quiet understanding between them that underlines their kinship – family and otherwise.

When the song ends, they return to the table, and Millie holds her hand out to Jean. The old confidence has definitely returned, then; Jean lifts an eyebrow.

(She is not, of course, going to say no; there’s a peculiar tightness in her stomach that wouldn’t let her if she tried, but she has her pride.)

“A dance? Millie - ”

“Don’t worry, they don’t mind that kind of thing here. C’mon.”

The grand way in which Millie announces this _obvious fact_ makes Jean smile a little. She rises to her feet, accepts Millie’s offer to lead, puts her arms around the other woman just a little more tightly than she did for that last dance, at Bletchley.

“This is not my first time in an establishment for homosexuals, you know.”

“ _Jean!_ ”

Millie’s eyes grow big, and Jean decides she enjoys slightly scandalising her younger friend. It’s interesting, she ponders with badly hidden amusement, how this newer, freer generation always tends to think it _invented_ everything – dancing, love, war, music, homosexuality.

(While she was not exactly frequenting these establishments as Millie was busy being born - she’s not quite _that_ old, thank you – she did figure out fairly quickly that men were not quite the thing, and nature took its course.)

Jean can’t help smiling as Millie’s scandalised look turns into a slow smirk, a moment of rare Harcourt silence. Then:

“Why, _Jean_! And here I tried to convince Eddie you’d positively _shun_ me unless we switched our plans for a swanky dinner at Claridge’s instead!”

“I promise you, Millie,” Jean responds, a little drily, “that homosexuals have been around for a little while before 1938. I’m a lesbian, not a nun.”

“ _Jean_!”

She laughs out loud at that, allows her hand to rest on Millie’s waist, and, _leading be damned_ , twirls the other woman around on the next beat. They move well together, their faces almost unbearably close to one another as the music continues and Jean’s cheek, finally, comes to rest somewhere between Millie’s neck and her shoulder.

(As it turns out, she smells like unbearably fancy and utterly clandestine perfume; even so, Jean finds she’s contemplating the line of her jaw and the warmth of her skin rather than either social class or legal matters.)

While she hadn’t exactly _expected_ the night to take this particular course, she knows she’d take this place, and its people, over dinner at Claridge’s a thousand times over.


	4. Four

“There’s twin beds; no need to worry,” announces a very drunk Millie, apropos of nothing, as she steers Jean into a taxi. Jean hears herself producing an unintelligible response that’s both vaguely jolly and mostly confusing, wonders what the _hell_ is happening to her neatly ordered life.

(Edward has made his excuses a little earlier as he departed with a rather strikingly handsome and equally uniformed young man; the two of them are returning to the mystery friend’s apartment alone.)

Still, she laughs as she helps her friend get into the taxi beside her; Millie gets in with rather too much enthusiasm, falls half against her as she tells the driver the address. Jean puts an arm around her to balance them both, then, a little awkwardly, pulls her arm back again. As she does, Millie makes a protesting noise, leans in closer and reaches for her hand.

In the complete darkness of blacked-out London, their fingers find one other – not desperately, this time, like that night Jean found Millie working at midnight, but surprisingly gently, surprisingly naturally. Their palms touch, and Jean has to remind her heart to start beating again.

(It’s been a long, long time since she held another woman’s hand, had her own held in return; the War made it feel too risky, somehow, too frivolous, too.)

As the taxi comes to stop, Millie, newly re-energised somehow, pulls her along, helps her to her feet. They walk up the two flights of stairs to the flat hand in hand; neither of them mentions the fact, of course, not even when, in the end, Millie looks into Jean’s eyes for what feels like a moment to long when she finally has to let go to spend a drunk, confused minute fumbling with the flat’s keys.

The flat really does feature twin beds; they’re pushed together, which – again – neither Millie nor Jean choose to comment upon. They chastely retreat into the bathroom each in turn; Jean slips under the covers of her bed by the time Millie emerges again.

Turns out, there’s something particularly breathtaking about the sight of Camilla Harcourt in her impossibly glamorous nightgown, her hair loose and combed out, her face devoid – for once – of makeup. Jean finds herself smiling, feeling more than a little bit like a deluded, middle-aged fool.

Millie, of course, sails straight toward her, only a little unsteady on her feet. She’s got the oddly focused look of someone who’s had one too many yet has something important to say.

“You look pretty with your hair down.”

Jean is still thinking of a response when Millie leans in and kisses her somewhere between her cheek and her mouth. She then promptly loses her balance and collapses mostly, if not entirely, onto her own bed.

“Thanks for coming to London with me. ‘S been fun.”

Jean turns on her side, smiles at Millie as she sees the other woman peeking across at her over the edge of her pillow. She reaches out, despite her better judgement – it’s becoming a pattern where Millie is concerned – and gently strokes the other woman’s hair.

“Thanks for asking me.”

Jean goes to sleep with too much gin in her veins and too many feelings in her heart.


	5. Five

The next morning, she finds Millie’s bed disturbed but unoccupied, the bedroom door wide open, and the twin smells of impossibly strong coffee and cigarette smoke in the air. The radio’s on unnecessarily loudly, Millie’s humming along tunelessly from the kitchen; Jean’s head is pounding and yet she finds herself unexpectedly delighted.

Her cardigan – dark green and homemade – is flung precariously over the back of a chair; she grabs it and throws it over her shoulders, then goes to join the other woman. Millie’s sitting on the kitchen counter, her dressing gown hanging open and a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. As she spots Jean, she grins.

“Good morning, darling. Breakfast?”

Jean doesn’t miss a beat.

“Which means, I assume, black coffee?”

Millie throws her head back and laughs as she hands the other woman a chipped mug.

“You win. Here.”

She pats a spot on the counter beside her; Jean, to her own surprise, manages a rather sprightly hop. Their hips bump into one another, Millie’s hair brushes her cheek, the coffee is strong, and life is more surprising than it has been in years.

Millie turns her head to smile at her. She holds up her own mug.

“’S all I have to offer, I’m afraid. I haven’t cooked a day in my life – nobody tell my future husband.”

Jean laughs out loud, sending a wave of (surprisingly easily ignored) pain up the back of her head. Millie grins and offers her a cigarette, mainly, Jean senses, for the pleasure of seeing her refuse.

“I bet you’re a lovely cook.”

“I am. It’s not like we used to eat before the War, of course, but I am.”

Millie’s still looking at her; Jean thinks smoking is a filthy habit, really, but it suits her enormously somehow.

“I’ll cook you dinner sometime.”

A single raised eyebrow expresses Millie’s surprise at the offer; in fact, though, Jean has mostly surprised herself.

(In truth, the situation, the waking and breakfasting together, fills Jean with a sort of immodest mischief. She knows, of course, that they’re not _like that_ – she knows they can’t be _like that_ , knows Millie likely, maybe, perhaps doesn’t even _want_ to be _like that_ , but even so, even so.)

She finds she means it, though, for what that’s worth.

*

One week later to the day, Millie waltzes into Jean’s office at exactly nine-thirty at night, makes her an absurd little curtsey, and hands her a paper bag.

(Jean, assuming Millie had found better company for the evening and trying her damnedest to pragmatically accept that, is halfway Agatha Christie’s latest as this unusual event occurs.)

She takes the paper bag and – half afraid and half, dare she say it, excited – opens it.

…

She frowns, peers in, opens it a little wider. A wrapper rustles, she looks up again.

“ _Butter and sugar_?”

Millie smiles at her. It makes Jean’s stomach feel deliciously strange, but she’s not about to let this issue slide. She frowns, looks a little sternly at Millie over the rim of her glasses.

Of course Millie’s quicker.

“So you can bake a proper cake - call it a sample before that full dinner you promised me. Just like you were saying, a cake like we used to eat before the War.”

“I _highly_ doubt your and my people ate the same sorts of cakes before the War.”

Millie lifts an eyebrow, Jean clacks her tongue.

“There’s too much here, anyway – these aren’t your rations, are they?”

It’s not really a question. Millie winks, shrugs, takes the paper bag from Jean, folds it closed again and hands it back.

“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.”

“ _Millie_.”

Millie looks her straight in the eye and lies.

“I’ve an uncle who’s a farmer, all right?”

“An uncle who’s a farmer who conveniently raises cows and grows sugar beets?!”

“What can I say, the Harcourts have been an ambitious people since the Conquest.”

Jean’s still pondering what to say to that when Millie lifts her hand to her mouth, kisses it, leaves a lipstick mark and vanishes again.

Butter, sugar, weak knees. A fine romance.


	6. Six

_Dear Val,_

_I was so pleased to hear of your engagement to Freddie! I always liked him and I’m sure he’ll be good to you – congratulations to both of you._

Millie’s pen pauses, but she realises she’s told no lies: she’s always thought Freddie Arbuthnot to be a bit of a blathering idiot, but she’s also always liked him despite herself. He’s kind-hearted if nothing else, and her sister could do much worse; at least life won’t be quite as dull as it might have been.

_I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to the wedding, unfortunately, but thank you very much for thinking of me. They’re not giving us a lot of time off over here, even if it’s just clerical labour. You’d be surprised to hear how much admin the war machine produces!_

Another pause.

_As for me, I’m no longer quite as close with Susan as I was; I suppose friendships change quickly in wartime. I think she may have a boyfriend, anyway, and you know I’ve never been particularly interested in that side of life._

There’s an honesty and a safety in writing to one’s repressed, hopelessly posh younger sister; at least she knows one, and at least she’ll never tell. Any whiff of scandal would hurt her more than it would Millie, at this stage, and Millie’s words are vague enough to allow for (perhaps not very) plausible deniability.

(Even if Susan doesn’t have a boyfriend; even if Susan was just _thinking_ of getting a boyfriend. Even if Millie suspects even her sister can read between those particular lines at this stage.)

She chews the back of her pen and hears her mother’s voice in her head. It’s a filthy habit, she knows – though not nearly Millie’s filthiest.

_I’m becoming quite friendly with another girl, though. We went into London the other week and met up with Edward for tea and some shopping. It was the loveliest time I’ve had in a long while, and I do hope we’ll see more of each other. You’d really like her._

On the one hand, even this casual description feels vaguely transgressive and satisfying, but on the other hand, it’s also deeply odd – this representation of Jean as “another girl”, of their outing, whatever it was, as “tea and some shopping”. Really though, there are limits, even if Val considers herself very worldly indeed ever since she read the first fifteen pages of _Mrs Dalloway_ last year.

After all, one can hardly tell one’s future-Viscountess sister one is dreaming of kissing one’s boss.

(It isn’t just _kissing_ , either, but that she can’t quite admit yet even to her own thoughts.)

One thing isn’t a lie, which is that Val – neat, orderly _Head Girl_ Val, with her unfailing sense of duty, of savoir faire, of propriety – probably really _would_ like Jean, were they ever to meet, which they won’t.

It’s a strange thought which Millie does not especially want to dwell upon if she can help it.

She smiles and isn’t sure why, then scribbles the usual final few lines – how’s Mama, how’s Father, how’s Granny’s cough and does Mrs Brunty have her grandchild yet – and adds stamp and familiar address as required.

Short as it is, the letter feels like a declaration of something, and as, minutes later, Millie turns away after depositing it safely in the post box, she can’t quite help searching for a hint of light behind the blacked-out windows of Jean’s sitting room.

There’s none, of course; Miss McBrian knows what she’s doing.


	7. Seven

Miss McBrian does indeed, Jean reflects as she removes a perfectly golden cake from the oven, know what she’s doing – so long as what she’s doing involves recreational baking, rather than the development of confusing feelings for her subordinates.

She returns to her sitting room, feeling oddly clandestine, and props up the cake on an improvised cooling rack, unable to deny – confusing feelings aside – that the product of her labours fills her Scottish housewife heart with pride. It’s a pride tinged with melancholy for the world in which she came to adulthood, the world they all once lived in, where butter and sugar could be bought without much thought and without a ration card.

Indeed, Jean acknowledges as she pours herself a cup of tea, sits down in her comfortable chair, she sometimes wonders whether that world will ever come again even if, as the war goes on and they move further and further away from the way things were, she increasingly knows the answer. The War won’t last forever, but the world as it was is forever lost and forever changed – for bad, for good, for sure.

The cake needs a little time to cool before it can be shared with her girls, so Jean picks up Josephine Tey’s _A Shilling for Candles_ and idly fingers her way to the page she arrived at the night before. It’s not a bad novel; better than, Jean thinks privately, _The Man in the Queue_. Sure, it's not quite a Christie, of course, or a Wentworth, but Jean does rate Tey over Ngaio Marsh, who manages to win her over with two novels and then, each time, lose her again with the third.

(Before the War, of course, one would hear the odd rumour about Tey and her predilection for well-known lesbians of the theatre – it’s possible that that, along with their shared Scots heritage, made Jean like her just a little more.)

She reads half a page and decides she cannot for the life of her remember why Inspector Grant is interviewing the victim’s old schoolfellow; it’ll just have to wait.

(After all, surely there’s someone who deserves to taste the cake first of all – Jean’s nothing if not a fair woman.)

She tucks the book away, opens her door, looks out.

“Betty?”

She beckons a familiar blonde figure walking down the hallway; the girl turns around with vaguely pleasing alacrity.

“Yes, Miss McBrian?”

“Could you ask Millie Harcourt to come see me for a minute? Tell her it’s an urgent matter.”

It comes out rather more sternly than she’d intended; Elizabeth Clement clearly assumes Millie’s committed an unspeakable crime which warrants instant execution. Part of Jean feels a little bad – another, rather more mischievous and largely unacknowledged, part knows a bit of urgency won’t do Millie any harm.

A few minutes tick by until, altogether surprisingly promptly, a knock on the door makes Jean look up from her idle contemplation of her crime novel’s fairly uninspiring cover.

(There’s only so much an illustrator can do with _A Shilling for Candles_ as a title, she supposes.)

“Come in!”

Millie blows into the room with red in her cheeks and her hair tousled; she’s been outside smoking, no doubt, which Jean disapproves of for many reasons, but she also happens to be looking like a fresh breath of air and bravura for all that. It’s surprisingly hard, Jean finds, not to smile.

(It’s 1944, and maybe she’s growing soft.)

She gets up from her chair, briefly contemplates a compensatory stern look over her glasses, but Millie’s quicker -

“Miss McBrian! Jean! Oooooo, you genius!”

The unabashedly excited look on Millie’s face – the look of one who knows where to get butter and sugar and who has no idea what to do with them once she gets them - frankly does a body good, and Jean abandons all attempts at discipline. She grins at the younger woman.

“Thank your _uncle_ and your lucky stars, girl. That’s a bloody good cake if I say so m’self.”

Millie grins right back, of course, and steps slightly closer – toward _the cake_ , of course.

“I never doubted it. I’ll give Uncle Harry your compliments.”

Jean lifts a dark eyebrow and tilts up her chin – there’s always someone who has to take things too far, and she’s found Millie is usually that someone.

“Ah, yes, _Harry Harcourt_ of the famous cows and beets.”

“Might be my mother’s brother, for all you know.”

Millie winks in exactly the kind of way Jean feels is decidedly inappropriate for the workplace, and it’s all Jean can do to roll her eyes, turn away, and fetch a couple small plates.

“Might be. Sit down before I change my mind.”

The younger woman laughs and does; she can switch off the shameless flirting as easily as she can switch it on, and they share a few cups of tea and a couple slices of frankly _astonishingly_ excellent cake exactly like the companionable co-conspirators they have, apparently, become.

(It’s over an hour until the cake’s remains, finally, make it to the common room.)


	8. Eight

The problem is, of course, that Millie isn’t just a pretty face. If she were – and Jean’s not a nun, nor has she ever been immune to the attractions of a good-looking woman with a nice smile and good hair – that would be one thing; one can, as a self-respecting lesbian well on her way to middle age, admire such a creature but not be entirely discombobulated by her very existence.

Millie, however – Millie keeps Jean on her toes, and as they, having deposited the cake in front of its adoring fans, begin to say a casual goodnight by her sitting room door, the younger woman suddenly nods in the direction of Jean’s armchair.

“I’ve met her, you know. Josephine Tey.”

Well, what’s Jean to say to that? An invitation is extended – one last cup of tea before bed is easily accepted – and Millie explains.

“Well, I went to see Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies in Macbeth in ’42, with Gielgud – I had a bit of a pash for the lovely Gwen Lucy, to be frank, and, well, I don’t use the Harcourt name very often, but as it turns out, it still holds the power to get one invited to the dressing rooms of London’s foremost Shakespearian actresses. Tey was there that evening.”

Jean’s more absorbed than she’d readily admit, and Millie answers her unspoken question with a grin.

“Oh, I don’t think it’s _like that_ – they’re friends, although of course Ffrangcon-Davies is _like that_ , for certain. I liked Tey, though. She’s Scottish, as I’ve absolutely no doubt you know, and she took the trouble to ask poor little starstruck Millie Harcourt about her _clerical work_ , and everything.”

“I doubt you’ve ever been poor, little _or_ starstruck, dear.”

Millie grins again and gestures with an unlit cigarette.

“It’s a figure of speech. May I?”

Jean nods, surprising (cursing) herself.

“Anyway, she was very kind to me at the time – I actually read _The Man in the Queue_ shortly after and sent it to her to get it signed, which she did. See? I’m not all lesbian dressing room intrigue – I read, ‘n everything.”

She does read, of course; and she talks, and Jean’s enjoying this conversation, its frankness, its open acknowledgement of their mutual predilections, more than she has quite possibly enjoyed any conversation since she came to Bletchley.

And Jean knows herself, as well, and she knows that this is going too far – Millie’s chatter in her sitting room long after dark, her oddly intoxicating and blatantly clandestine cigarette smoke in the air, and Jean’s sinking, sinking heart in her throat.

(It’s too much, too close, too hopeless, and frankly it’s a liability for both of them and for the war effort they’re sworn to.)

*

They say goodnight, and Jean changes, slowly, for bed. As always, she combs out her hair in front of the mirror, which has the unfortunate consequence that it forces her to look her own self in the eye. It’s embarrassing. 

Of course she’s been here before; hasn’t everyone of their kind, doesn’t everyone have those stories, of teachers at school, unknowing childhood friends, the odd colleague? The slippage from pleasant admiration into humiliating passion – the notion that one wants so much and will receive so very little?

Millie’s almost fifteen years younger; she’s a subordinate and, what’s more, as if that were not sufficient to Jean’s general rule-following streak, she is, for all her outrageous flirtation, utterly uninterested in any of the things Jean’s worried she will _literally dream_ _about_ some night. Most of all, she’s nursing a broken heart and has found the nearest authority figure an unexpectedly sympathetic confidante; it’s not a crime, but nor is it anything to invest any hope in.

They’re here to win a war, and Jean’s been distracted long enough.

She puts down the brush; her eyes in the mirror are dry.

Jean goes to bed, switches off the light, and sleeps without dreaming.


	9. Nine

Over the next few days, Jean makes a concerted effort to establish some distance; a surprisingly difficult thing to do, she finds, when one is engaged in top secret war work together and indeed spends most of one’s time within the same four walls.

Even still, she tries her best: when she’s asked to dinner by a few colleagues from Hut Eight, she says a grateful yes, while another evening, she goes to bed ridiculously early only to spend an embarrassing amount of time wide awake. Yet another time, she finds the Hut’s schedule is arranged most easily with herself working late alongside a few other girls, while Millie’s on the early shift the next morning.

It works for almost a week, which is a relief; as ever, Jean reflects, level-headedness and a healthy dose of emotional repression have won the day, and a friendly collegiality (with the odd meeting-in-passing) is far preferable to the intensity of their rapidly developing acquaintance. It is, no doubt, what’s best for her much younger friend, as well.

(She almost convinces herself – there’s something to be said for keeping busy.)

On day seven, of course, her luck doesn’t last; Millie catches her on her way back from work, and Jean does a valiant attempt at her most professional smile. She’s flustered, has got her arms full of folders and a lock of hair dangling precariously out of her bun - feels dishevelled, sweaty and wildly, _wildly_ unattractive.

(It is unclear why this should matter - one does not rise within the ranks of Mr Turing’s girls by caring all too much about frivolities - but somehow it does.)

“Jean!”

“Good evening, dear.”

She keeps walking; Millie, of course, walks on right alongside her.

“Edward’s back in town next week, and I was thinking perhaps we might have dinner before meeting him for drinks? If we can get the day off, of course – I know a restaurant that serves some splendid French food, practically pre-War, and I _promise_ it’s a little more your speed than any of the places you might imagine us black sheep frequenting. In fact…”

“Millie.”

Jean’s trying to be reasonable, calm, collected; the kind of thing she has absolutely no difficulty with except when around Millie Harcourt. Millie pauses abruptly, more so than Jean was necessarily expecting. She feels herself flush and finds her words.

“I’m not entirely sure me accompanying you to London would be appropriate.”

Millie says nothing, which makes it harder. Jean deliberately keeps her voice light – and that, surprisingly, makes it harder still.

“Of course I had a lovely time, dear, but after all, I _am_ your superior, and wouldn’t it be a better idea to ask another friend along this time? Perhaps you could ask – well, Lucy?”

It’s an idiotic thing to suggest, of course, in some ways Jean can explain and others she cannot, and she has the good grace to blush a bit more brightly as she says it.

(This only increases her resemblance, no doubt, to a sweaty Scottish farmhorse.)

Millie stares at her; the tension is somehow more intense than is warranted, considering, and Jean almost caves – then doesn’t.

“Ah – yes, Lucy.”

Millie’s looking a little mulish, her voice flat.

“I suppose maybe I shall.”

It’s a full-on lie, of course; they’re both well aware. They’re standing closer together than Jean was planning anytime soon, and Millie’s eyes are young and brilliant and unreadable. It’s the complete absence of flirtation that somehow hits Jean hardest.

After a stilted goodnight, she closes the door and reminds herself it’s for the best.

*

Millie waltzes into the common room and slams the door a bit – just a bit – for good measure, only to look straight into the startled eyes of Susan Havers, and absolutely nobody else.

(She’d have left, normally; some weeks ago, she’d have walked straight out again upon entering the common room and finding Susan alone. Now, it barely registers.)

She throws herself down in a chair, combs a hand through her hair as if that’ll fix the punch in the chest she just received, and attempts casual conversation.

“Evening. Am I missing some kind of GI bash – where’s the gang gone off to?”

Susan smiles at her, a little cautiously, gestures toward the letter she’s writing.

“Nothing too extravagant, I don’t think – Hut Twelve’s throwing a sherry party. I wanted to get my letter to Mum into the evening mail, though.”

Millie nods and lights a cigarette – picks up a magazine, frowns, finds herself entirely baffled by the news of Lana Turner’s _second divorce_ _from the same man_ (isn’t she basically Millie’s age?!), and tosses the magazine down again. Her foot nervously taps the coffee table, she lights a second cigarette before the first is finished, sips someone else’s abandoned cup of cold tea.

Susan stops scribbling and looks up again.

“There’s some freshly boiled water in the kettle, if you like.”

“It’s fine.”

“Is it, though?”

Susan is Susan, of course, so she gets up, fetches Millie a cup of tea, sets it down carefully beside her.

“Here – you look all in.”

It’s a kind gesture from a kind girl, really, but it’s also a rather horrific parody of a future lost twice over. Even so, Millie thanks her – their breakup feels like a long time ago, and there’s not quite enough space in her brain, sizable though it may be, for several complex grudges at once.

“Cheers.” 

“So what’s the matter, then?”

Never mind – complex grudges fit the bill just fine sometimes. Millie looks up at the girl – the _previous_ girl – who broke her heart and can’t help rolling her eyes.

“What’s the matter?! Yes, Susan, what could _possibly_ be the matter with me? I do have feelings, you know - real human ones and everything.”

It’s not really fair to make Susan feel responsible for this, she knows, but _of course_ Susan’s smarter than that.

She sighs and puts down her pen, then eyes Millie across the room. She still cares, Millie knows, in her way – Millie also knows it’s never quite been the way she cared for Susan. It still stings, but feels oddly unimportant now.

“Look, I’m sorry I hurt you and that I don’t want to marry you, Millie. You didn’t seem to care so much as long as Jean was baking cakes for you, though.”

Millie’s not, in essence, the kind of person who bears grudges, be they complex or not, but the look she casts Susan is pure poison. Susan, though, seems unimpressed.

“You know I’m not lying.”

She isn’t lying, because perfect Susan Havers never lies, and Millie could frankly upend her rapidly cooling cup of tea right on top of Susan’s _smug stupid reasonable face_. Susan Havers knows where the Nazi army will be in two days. Susan Havers knows how to solve quadratic equations in her sleep. Susan Havers knows how Millie feels in her heart of hearts.

Susan Havers urgently needs to _shut up and mind her own stupid heterosexual business_.

The door slams, Millie’s eyes water, it’s a fine romance.


	10. Ten

Jean is not an especially vain woman, but she also knows she’s not entirely over the hill yet; for all that men have tended to pay her little attention, she’s fairly pleased with her hair and colouring, and more than one similarly inclined woman has told her she’s pretty enough when she smiles. While Millie does not and cannot be looking for what she’s looking for, therefore, she’s ready enough to accept the younger woman’s developed a bit of a crush to mend her broken heart.

She’s prepared to be kind, if distant; ready, even, to be patient so as to allow Millie some time and space for them to return to their old status quo.

What she’s not prepared for, of course – and in retrospect she will wonder what on _earth_ she was thinking – is for the reality of who Millie Harcourt is as a person.

There’s no timid misery, no red-rimmed eyes, no gentle acceptance, because Millie Harcourt is young, but not that young - and because Millie Harcourt is equal parts completely brilliant and utterly difficult.

The next day, before ten in the morning, she delivers to Jean the perfectly deciphered outcome of a project that’s taken her weeks to complete; a particularly complex code holding some modest, but nonetheless important, information about the projected German troop deployments for the next few months. As Jean looks up, impressed despite herself, Millie’s eyes are cool.

“The cipher is based on Goethe’s _An Charlotte von_ Stein, which is an odd choice, but I suppose they thought it’d make things harder for us to crack. It’s a love poem – “ _many thousands of us drift dumbly through life, our hearts scarcely known_ ” – which is why I recalled it. At any rate, the message should be helpful to our boys.”

Her fingers linger slightly too long on Jean’s as she hands over the neatly typed sheet, her mouth is not, perhaps, painted redder than usual, but it _looks_ it, and Jean feels her own heart must be very well-known indeed to all and any onlookers. She clears her throat.

“Good work. I’ll take it to the House.”

Millie takes a moment to break their eye contact.

“Yes, Miss McBrian.”

She nods, a little smirk on her lips, and returns to her desk. She bows her head back over her work, her curls held back by a scarf.

It is remarkable, Jean reflects on her way back from delivering the message, that Millie manages to make her feel this way _through the use of love poetry as employed by the Nazi army for cipher purposes._ It’s even more remarkable that Millie seems to be infuriatingly aware of it.

(It’s frankly not the kind of thing she’d like to spend a great deal of time thinking about.)

*

This seems to be Millie’s new tactic, Jean realises as the next week passes by; an interesting balance between codebreaking brilliance and a truly encyclopaedic knowledge of German geography, literature and linguistics on the one hand, and completely maddening insubordination on the other.

There’s the odd touch that lingers too long; the nonchalant lateness coming into work in the morning – and the sheer intellect, the quick thinking, the flawless intuition that means Jean can’t even quite remark upon the lateness. Most of all, though, there’s the _smoke breaks,_ always a point of contention between them, which grow longer and more frequent and more blatant until one day, the inevitable happens.

Jean’s on her way back from a particularly tedious meeting of the senior staff; she feels cold, worn out, discouraged, and approximately three thousand years old. The Hut is somehow unfaceable, all of a sudden, and she decides to walk around the long way, give her brain a little time to decompress before plunging back into never-ending work.

She turns the corner and – _of course_ \- bumps right into Millie, who’s standing in the building’s shadow smoking. It’s dangerous and breaks the blackout, and _maybe_ they’re not in the city and _perhaps_ Millie’s right and it doesn’t matter, exactly, but Jean strongly dislikes being disobeyed and she’s done with all of this.

“What are you doing? Is this supposed to be your break?”

Millie looks startled, but adjusts quickly. She raises a perfect eyebrow, responds in a singsong voice not quite her own, and Jean realises, with some surprise, that she’s not sad or despondent or seeking a shoulder to cry on – that she’s angry.

“I’m _so_ sorry, Miss McBrian. Would you like to join me?”

With a deliberately casual gesture, she holds out the cigarette, brightly lipstick-stained, to Jean, who feels the blood rush to her cheeks. She forces her voice into a composure she doesn’t feel.

“Come on, Millie. It’s late and the blackout’s on. Let’s not do this now.”

Millie’s voice sinks lower again – it’s all her own once more, a little hoarse, perfectly enunciated.

“Not now? If not now, when, Miss McBrian? Here’s to many long winter nights of not making eye contact and pretending we’re not who we are? And that we’re at boarding school and I’m sixteen and I’ve no idea about what I may or may not want?”

She leans back against the windowsill and takes a long drag off her cigarette; crosses her feet at the ankle, looks expectantly at Jean, whose temper – carefully controlled but easily flammable at the best of times – suddenly overflows.

“Stop smoking _instantly_ and return to your desk.”

Millie pushes out the cigarette against the windowsill, stands up, crosses her arms. Her voice is quietly furious.

“ _Make me_.”

Millie stares at her – Jean stares right back, and suddenly she’s _done_. She’s tried. She’s done her level best. It’s more than the good Lord can in all fairness ask of a decent Presbyterian lesbian in this, the fourth year of an endless war.

None too gently, she grabs Millie by the collar of her blouse, pushes her up against the wall. The feeling of the younger woman’s body against hers sends a palpable shock through both of them, and Jean tilts up her chin.

Millie’s eyes are frank, provocative, _earth-shatteringly beautiful_ , and Jean kisses the breath right out of her.

(Thank God for the blackout.)


	11. Eleven

Their first kiss ends abruptly, with an exchange of looks and a brush of hands, then a wordless, slightly dazed and frankly surreal return to work. In truth, Jean would fully believe she dreamed the entire episode, were it not for the fact that, as they wrap up for the night an hour and a half later, Millie winks at her before walking out.

Jean stays behind her girls a while, as usual – straightens out the odd pen here, checks on the progress of a task there, takes a moment to tidy her hair in the mirror.

She leaves the room in the dark, walks around the corner, then around the corner again. When she does not, in fact, spot Millie standing outside her door, Jean is aware of a niggling sense of surprise, disappointment even. Famously, patience is not her younger friend’s strongest suit. (It isn’t hers, either.)

She unlocks her door and walks in, then surprises herself even more when she flushes like a girl upon spotting the envelope pushed under the door.

(Millie has the handwriting of a duchess who’s slightly _too much_ to ever actually become a duchess.)

She opens it up and finds an old postcard inside; it seemingly depicts a scantily clad fan dancer, at least twenty years ago. It’s mildly pornographic and somehow fitting.

“Breakfast at seven-thirty.” is all the postcard says. It’s signed with a scarlet lipstick kiss, and of course everything is intensely filmic and rather overdramatic and unbelievably _Millie Harcourt_ and yet oddly moving, too.

Jean supposes there’s nothing she can do except wait for whatever is supposed to arrive at seven-thirty; she reads her crime novel and goes to bed.

*

The knock arrives promptly seven-thirty; quite a feat, Jean thinks, for a woman who’s spent the past week consistently being late to work.

She opens up. Millie’s wearing a bright red top and a scarf in her hair as well as, somehow, her coat, and she’s looking positively _delighted_ to be presenting Jean with a thoroughly sticky paper bag. Jean chuckles out loud in surprise, then nods her head.

“Come inside.”

The door being safely closed, she eyes the bag with some suspicion.

“Go on, open up. It’s for you.”

Who the bag is or is not intended for was not, Jean must admit, what was keeping her from taking hold of it; against her better judgement, however, she opens it anyway. It turns out to be a good life decision, as Millie Harcourt’s ideas sometimes, if not always, are.

“A chocolate pastry?!”

“A proper pain au chocolat!” confirms Millie proudly.

It’s a real treat, beyond rare in wartime, and Jean truly has _not an inkling_ how Millie managed to acquire it between their parting at nine and their reunion at seven-thirty. Her head, seemingly, cannot quite decide whether it wants to swoon in response to this _really quite excellent_ gift or develop a mild headache at the thought of how this pastry ended up in her hand. It’s Uncle Harry Harcourt’s beet and butter farm all over again.

“I suppose one shouldn’t ask - ” she begins, and Millie smiles.

“I speak French, it’s surprisingly helpful.”

(To whom? When? Where? Perhaps some secrets are better kept.)

Jean smiles up at Millie and deposits the bag on the coffee table. The younger woman’s still standing, and Jean gestures toward the chair.

“Sit down and let me make us a pot of tea – we’ll split the pastry and have a proper feast.”

Millie, however, shakes her head.

“I’ve been out for the past two hours sourcing your breakfast – I’ve really got to make an appearance in my bedroom, or Julie will think I absconded. Before I go, though - ”

Jean turns, teapot in hand.

“Yes?”

“I’d like to kiss you again.”

Somehow Jean finds the statement deeply, deeply touching, and she doesn’t quite recognise her own voice as she responds.

“I’d like that, too, dear.”

There’s a moment’s silence, as their bickering, so comfortable and so familiar, subsides. This new reality has sobered them both; for people like them, this step is always a risk, requires more trust, perhaps, than it does for those who are normal.

In the end, it is – perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not at all – Jean who finds her footing first, who carefully sets the teapot down on the coffee table and then bridges the few feet between them at a leisurely pace, like her heartrate hasn’t even sped up in the slightest.

Millie’s a grown woman, but she is younger than her, and Jean feels an odd tenderness claw at her heart at the entirely unguarded look in the other woman’s eyes. Millie Harcourt is so tough and so smart and so witty, and yet so young, so eager for the whole entire world – and truth be told, Jean (who’s always considered herself a bit of a cynic, but not here, not now) wishes she could give it to her.

She reaches up, puts a hand on Millie’s cheek and kisses her again. Millie’s arms come up around her, hold her a bit closer, and Jean – who’s been a lesbian since about 1923, _thank you very much_ – actually and genuinely feels her knees going weak underneath her.

The kiss is gentler than their first, neither driven by anger nor an enormous reputational hazard; it is, quite simply, _nice_ , and it leaves Jean wanting more. They break apart, and Millie says her goodbyes.

It takes Jean a full twenty minutes to remember her pain au chocolat.


End file.
